Subcategories

Cosmological Beliefs

50 of 368 entries in Beliefs & Restrictions. Click any to see everything it connects to.

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Cosmological Beliefs." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/subcategories/belief/cosmological-beliefs.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Cosmological Beliefs. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/subcategories/belief/cosmological-beliefs

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-cosmological-beliefs,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Cosmological Beliefs},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/subcategories/belief/cosmological-beliefs},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Beliefs about the structure and origin of the cosmos held by a tradition or its adherents, as distinct from the cosmology and world-structure subcategory under the doctrine type, which records the same territory once a tradition's authorities have formally systematised it. The line between the two is often a matter of degree rather than kind.

Facts

Overview

What Defines This Grouping

Statements about the structure and history of the world and its beings - creation, world ages, the shape of the cosmos, the fate of the dead - held as articles of a tradition rather than as speculation. The accounts gathered here answer different questions: an origin of the world and a recurring destruction of it are not the same kind of claim. 2

Status

Standing as a Comparative Category

A standard analytic category in the study of religion 2

Karma: action determines future rebirth

Reincarnation (samsara)

Moksha: liberation from rebirth

Anatta: no permanent self

Nirvana: the end of suffering

The cosmic struggle of good and evil

The Threefold Law

Purgatory

The imminent Second Coming of Christ

Conditional immortality (annihilationism)

Eternal progression and exaltation

The Twelve Imams and the occultation of the Mahdi

Emptiness (sunyata)

Reincarnate lamas (tulku)

The avatars of Vishnu (dashavatara)

Advaita Vedanta (nondualism)

Naturalist conception of God

Yin and yang

Anekantavada (many-sidedness of truth)

The universe is natural, with nothing beyond it

This life is the only life there is

Wyrd and Orlog: The Weave of Fate

The Fylgja: A Spirit That Follows a Person or Family

Hamingja: Luck as an Inheritable Resource

Landvaettir: The Land's Own Spirits

Numen: The Presence and Will of a Power at Work

Do Ut Des: I Give So That You May Give

Genius and Juno: The Indwelling Spirit of a Person

Ancestors continue to watch over and can bless or punish their living descendants

Nahui Ollin: The Sun Requires Blood to Keep Moving

A person carries a ka, the vital force needing offerings after death, and a ba, the mobile aspect of self that can leave the tomb and move between the dead and the living.

Fate Binds Even the Gods

Dependent origination (pratitya-samutpada)

Impermanence (anicca)

The bardo, the intermediate state between death and rebirth

Self-emptiness (rangtong): things are empty of their own inherent existence

Other-emptiness (shentong): ultimate reality is empty of what is other than itself

The inseparability of samsara and nirvana

Three thousand realms in a single moment of thought (ichinen sanzen)

Mappo, the latter age of the decline of the Dharma

All phenomena lack intrinsic nature (svabhava)

Wahdat al-Shuhud: The Unity Perceived Is of Witness, Not of Being

Wahdat al-Wujud: All That Exists Is One Reality

The World's Plurality Is an Appearance Superimposed by Ignorance

Souls Are Eternally Graded and Not All Are Destined for Liberation

Purusha and Prakriti: Consciousness and Nature Are Two Irreducible Principles

The World Is the Free Self-Expression of a Single Consciousness, Not an Illusion

The Phenomenal World of Illness and Suffering Is Not Ultimately Real

The Creator of This World Is a Lesser Power Beneath the True God

The Soul Passes Through Successive Bodies

View At A Past Year